Brooke Annibale talks songwriting before Northampton show

Once Brooke Annibale got her hands on a tool on which to create her music at age 15, it didn't take her long to learn it and start writing songs.

"For whatever reason, I'd been writing lyrics and little melodies for fun since I was a pretty young kid. When I reached my teens I really wanted to start writing real songs, so I needed a tool to do that. It was easy to choose guitar because it was in my family already," she said. "My grandfather played guitar and had opened a music instrument store back in the '60s that is still family-run today. I just wanted to learn chords so I could write songs, so I spent most of my time learning my favorite songs."

Annibale will bring her music to the Parlor Room in Northampton on Sunday, June 17. She answered a few questions about her career thus far in a recent interview with The Republican

You majored in music business in college, how do you think that shaped your career and your view of the industry as a whole? Are there any disadvantages to coming at it from that angle artistically?

I don't really think there are any disadvantages of being educated about the business as an artist. I think it's good to know how difficult of an industry it is that you're getting into to help understand and the ups and downs it brings. I think it's shaped my career because I've always been willing to put in the behind the scenes work to help things along.

You ended up in Nashville for a while, but you don't seem like a traditional Nashville artist. What about the city and scene there drew you to it?

I haven't lived in Nashville for over four years, but know a ton of folks there making music for all sorts of projects outside of the traditional "Nashville" vibe. I was definitely initially drawn there because of all of the creative energy in the city, and the infrastructure to support it -- studios, venues, industry, musicians, etc. I think there's a pretty common misconception about what all is going on in Nashville. The primary face of the Nashville music scene is of course, country music but there are huge group of musicians living there that are working outside of that genre, which was super inspiring to me, when I lived there.

What's your songwriting process like? How do you go about putting together a song?

With this record I approached some of these songs a bit differently than in the past. As I was writing, I would start recording the songs at home and building up a demo as I wrote, trying to come up with an initial production vibe or direction, which then influenced the writing of the song. For most of my songwriting career, I have written primarily on acoustic guitar, but I was seeking some new inspiration for this new record, and started writing a lot more with my electric guitar. I always get asked, is it lyrics or guitar or melody that comes first, and there is never a set formula for me -- it could start with any of those elements and build from there.

Who would you say are your biggest influences as far as songwriting? And why?

My songwriting and musical influences change and shift all the time, but during the writing and recording of this new album I was listening a lot to Andy Shauf, Margaret Glaspy, Laura Marling, and Lisa Hannigan. I'd also been listening to a lot of indie pop music, like Sylvan Esso and Haim. I've always admired the songwriting of Elliott Smith and The Beatles. I tried to approach this album as a melding of two different influences of mine, acoustic/organic sounds and electronic/pop sounds.